The document discusses proposals to boost engineers' careers in Malaysia's food manufacturing industry in order to meet the country's Transformasi Nasional 2050 development plan. It identifies that there is currently a lack of experienced engineers in the food manufacturing sector due to unpopular degree programs and work-life balance issues. This can negatively impact productivity growth and food quality. Proposals suggested include obtaining advanced degrees or certifications, working overseas, adopting lean manufacturing practices, collaborating with foreign industries, showing appreciation for engineers, and running career promotion campaigns to attract more people to the field. Boosting engineers' careers is important to address skills shortages and meet development goals.

1. BENG 4322
ENGINEERS IN SOCIETY
HOW TO BOOST ENGINEERS’ CAREERS
GROUP 12;
SISUBALAN A/L SELVAN B051410128
PHOO YOONG HAU B051410106
NURUL NASREEN BINTI MOHD HASHIM B051410195
SII HEE HING B051410093
LECTURER: DR MOHAMAD BIN MINHAT

2. List of contents
PAGE
1.0 The Need of Boost Engineer’s Career 1
2.0 Potential Cause of the Issue 3
3.0 Potential effects resulted from the issue 4
4.0 Engineering activities involve in this case 5
5.0 Suggest appropriate proposals for the issue
5.1 Get an advanced degree (Master) or double degree 6
5.2 Other accredited certifications 6
5.3 Study overseas or work 7
5.4 Adopting Lean Manufacturing 7
5.5 Support research and development (R&D) centres in Malaysia 7
5.6 Sharing information/Collaborating with foreign industries 8
5.7 Learn from customers 8
5.8 Speak up and respect ideas 9
5.9 Motivation and appreciation 9
5.10 Campaign 10
6.0 Preventive actions 11
7.0 References 13

3. 1
1.0 The Need of Boost Engineer’s Career
In 2017, Malaysians celebrate 60 years as an independent nation. From our
humble and uncertain beginnings, we have grown and evolved significantly into a
modern economy and society. Beginning with the era of the New Economic Policy
(1971-1990), we stepped into the 2020 era (1991-2020). Now, we have to be ready to
face the next 30 years. Malaysia is on the path of heading to become a developed
country and has a Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) plan. Transformasi Nasional
2050 or TN50 is an initiative to plan for the future of Malaysia in the period 2020 to
2050. From the vision of becoming a developed nation, we should strive to be
amongst the top countries in the world in economic development, citizen well-being
and innovation.
According to Ahmed (1998), the food manufacturing industry in Malaysia
plays a significant role in the economy of the country. It serves not only as a source of
employment but also a market outlet and added value for primary agricultural
products. Under the Industrial Master Plan (IMP) 1986-1995, the food processing
industry has been identified as one of the priorities among the twelve manufacturing
sectors for industrial development. According to Ayupp (2013a) the government‟s
focus on the agriculture sector, the Malaysian food processing industry has become an
important part of the agro-based industry. In the Industrial Malaysian Plan 2006-2020
(IMP3) period, the food processing industry‟s investment target have been set at
RM24.6 billion (Ministry of International Trade and Industry, 2012) .
According to Ayupp (2013b), the food manufacturing industry in Malaysia is
undergoing numerous challenges that will cause this industry growing slow. Those
challenges including rising production costs, technological developments, shifting
demand patterns, changes in competitive groupings and lack of experience engineer.
We all know engineers do an important job that fuels our country‟s infrastructure and
economy. It is engineers who are behind our country‟s physical infrastructure, from
roads to bridges to dams and waste management as well as digital infrastructure, like
the communications and navigation networks that are part of daily life. In fact, we can
find an engineer in almost every field, including manufacturing, healthcare, research

4. 2
and etc. With engineers playing such a prominent role in our country‟s infrastructure
it‟s no surprise that engineering has a direct effect on the country‟s economy.
Food manufacturing industry is an important industry area where it can caused
heavy impart to the society if the food manufacturing/production engineer lack of the
relevant knowledge or does not abide the law. For example, a food production
engineer use a type of packaging material which will reacts and produce harmful toxic
with the food contained and this may cause damage on the health of public. All this
could happened if a food production engineer does not possess sufficient knowledge
on the relevant field. Hence the boots of engineer‟s careers who service at food
industry is necessary.
Moreover, according to Berita Harian online article indicates that more
engineers are required to realise this plan in upcoming 30 years. Hence this will open
the opportunity for many unemployed graduated engineering students. The engineer‟s
career boosts are required to not only to attract more undergraduates or unemployed
to be interested on working as engineer but also to upgrade the knowledge and the
marketability of the current engineers.

5. 3
2.0 Potential Cause of the Issue
Nowadays, engineering is consider to be a profession rather than an
occupation because a qualified engineer require special knowledge, special privileges
and special responsibilities. Due to this, the salary of engineer is generally higher than
most of the others job. But even working as engineer means a higher income, still, the
amount of engineer is still insufficient especially some unpopular engineer job such as
food production engineer.
The insufficient amount of experience engineer in food manufacturing
industry were caused by several factor. First, food manufacturing engineering or
manufacturing engineering is less popular compared to other engineering courses such
as civil engineering, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Students tend
to choose those “popular” courses because it sounds like more professional. As I
stated above, the amount of student graduate from engineering course is quite low,
and the amount of them from food manufacturing engineering is so less. This had
become one of the cause that the amount of professional engineer in food
manufacturing area is insufficient.
Besides this, being an engineer had its own bad side too. Although working as
engineer provide a higher income but at the same time it‟s hard for engineer to
achieve work-life balance due to the challenging job task. Other than this, some
believe that there is no job security as an engineer. With the goods economy slowing
and being superseded by services, and many of the manufacturing centres shifting
offshore, engineers need to constantly build up their skills to stay relevant for example
move into growth areas like ICT, Hi-Tech R&D or Bio Tech.

6. 4
3.0 Potential effects resulted from the issue
Since the issue is regarding the response or action taken by the food
manufacturing industry in Malaysia to meet Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) plan,
the major potential effects resulted from this issue would be the production of low
quality products or its productivity growth.
According to Ahmed (2012), the productivity growth of the food
manufacturing industry in Malaysia has developed in the recent years but it is still
behind the other manufacturing industries, specifically the non-resource based
industry such as the electronics and electrical industries.
The food manufacturing in Malaysia plays a significant role in the economy. It
serves not only as a source of employment but also a market outlet and added value
for primary agriculture products. Low productivity growth of Malaysian food
manufacturing industry will lead to high products price and low consumer welfare.
Measurement of productivity in food production has been focus in numerous studies
(Kamaruddin, 2000).
Secondly, the food productivity growth refers to the growth in economic
output per worker or more precisely, per hour of work. When this growth slows, the
potential for real wage increases diminishes since the growth in wages typically
reflects the ability of workers to create more output per unit of time.
Lastly, low productivity growth also affected the changes in the food quality
as there is less competitor in food industry. The food industry is a key stakeholder and
a major catalyst for change, so it is important that this business keep high productivity.
This will enable policy-makers to create regulatory frameworks that encourage the
private sector to step to the nutrition challenge and invest more sustainable business
operation (Arhad & Hameed, 2009).

7. 5
4.0 Engineering activities involve in this case.
In order to meet the Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) plan, many
manufacturing industries will look for hiring up new graduates or unemployed
engineers for work, which as stated in Berita Harian online report. But due to lack in
knowledge about an engineer‟s job especially as a food manufacturer, people tend to
pick other demanding jobs.
Hence, this will results in more tasks to be pushed towards the current engineers
in the industry, making them more stressful and less motivated. Hence, as result low
quality of products will be produced. Low quality products will result in the loss of
more customers‟ trust, making the plan to be far away to be realised. Moreover, a
stressful working environment will also results in more careless mistakes producing
more defects and wastes, which may also resulted in more dangerous environmental
impacts such as global warming. This is happened not only because of less public
interest on becoming a food industry engineers but as well as lack in the knowledge of
the current engineers in code of ethics and environment regulation law.
Furthermore, most people take engineering as a job instead of profession, which
means that they are waiting for get paid at the end of the every months by doing
repetitive works and work to meet customers order instead of making constructive
improvements. These engineers are required to get boost talk in order to motivate and
encourage them to explore new areas in order to improve the current industry‟s
production, which may not only ease the production sector but also will improve the
performance of the product. For example, they can start to explore and adopt
nanotechnology approaches to make a new high quality packaging materials. By
approaching this new advanced field, it will be able to not only increase quality of the
food but as well as the customer‟s satisfaction (Mihindukulasuriya & Lim, 2014).

8. 6
5.0 Suggest appropriate proposals for the issue.
5.1 Get an advanced degree (Master) or double degree
Receiving a master's degree in any courses can provide a career boost, but in
engineering, it's rapidly becoming a requirement for any type of career momentum. In
fact, some employers view a bachelor's degree as a "starter degree" and expect their
employees to earn a master's degree within a few years of starting work. Moreover,
earning a master degree or a double degree that is in different field than the previous
will result in increase in the marketability of an engineer. Hence, will receive more
work opportunities. More employers will start to hire these engineers due to their dual
knowledge. For example, taking Bachelor in Manufacturing Engineering and then
afterwards taking Master in Business Administration (MBA), which will provide that
related person to not only to get the engineering knowledge but also the knowledge of
business handling.
5.2 Other accredited certifications
Other than furthering their study to get more knowledge, an engineer can boost
his/her career in engineering by earning other certifications such as green card or
professional engineer (IR). To become as a professional engineer, an engineer is
required to get minimum experience of 4 years under the guidance of other
professional engineer in the same field, in order to take the professional assessment
examination at IEM (Institute of Engineers Malaysia)/ BEM (Board of Engineers
Malaysia). With the title of IR or P.Eng at the engineer name will motivate them and
help them to gain more respect from the public. Meanwhile with green card, he/she
will have to take few exams to get the certification of the worker safety and
environments. With this certification, many employers will start to hire due to the
knowledge in the safety of the workers and environment.

9. 7
5.3 Study overseas or work
By studying or working overseas, not only he/she will be able to gain new
knowledge on advanced technology but as well as to learn foreign culture. For
example, adopt the use of nanomaterial in food packaging industries. When it comes
to full time employed engineers, either the industry or government have to support
these engineers by financially so that they will be able to boost their engineering
carrier or knowledge as well as help to improve the industry.
5.4 Adopting Lean Manufacturing
Companies are required to create good working environment for their employees
especially engineers in order to motivate them and get them involved in improvement
processes. But unfortunately, according to Stadnicka & Sakano (2017) on their
researches found out that many employees are not willing to engage in the company
development. This is majorly due to the overload tasks which stressing out the
engineers to work in order to meet customer‟s requirement instead of focusing on
improving the system or processes. Hence, lean manufacturing methods are required
to reduce stress among the engineers and to motivate them to carry on their research
on the improvements. For example, adopting 5S or Kanban system can reduce the
waiting as well as increase the production of high quality products.
5.5 Support research and development (R&D) centres in Malaysia
Success in the business is always driven by innovation. Most of time the R&D
department of an industry always play a crucial role, which is to do continuous
improvement on their system and product in order to produce high quality products.
So by joining up with R&D department, he/she will be able to use their knowledge at
extent to serve the public or innovate something. By doing so, it might be able attract
more students to work as an engineer as well as will be able to boost the engineering
career of one. Meanwhile, at here the Malaysian government is required to fully
support every R&D departments in order to meet the TN50 plan. This is because of

10. 8
existing the R&D departments will be able to increase the competitiveness of different
local industries to create innovated products to attract more customers. Thus will be
able to boost the engineers career.
5.6 Sharing information/Collaborating with foreign industries
Sharing new technologies and new approaches between foreign countries like
Japan, China, India and United States. This can be done by sending local industry
engineers to the collaborated foreign company and receive their employees in return.
This employees transfer not only will be able study the working culture or
environment of the foreign countries but as well as the technology being used. For
example, an engineer whom represent the local company will be transferred to the
collaborated Japanese company in order to train them and as well as to expose them to
new field or technology. For instance, like sharing the blueprint or the technology of
making Toyota car or other products. Then after the came back to Malaysia, they will
start to come up with new ideas on improving the local products based on their
knowledge, hence it will boost their engineer career. Moreover, these representatives
will also be able to introduce new working environment that will boost the morale or
motivate other engineers to work under less stressful and efficient environment. For
example, like introducing the Jidoka or 5S system. Furthermore, these engineer will
also be able to learn how to handle new advanced tools from other company, or
introduce their new advanced technology to this company.
5.7 Learn from customers
Moreover, learning from customers will also be a part of engineer‟s life which
may also boost their careers. Learning from mistakes which were reported by the
customers will be able to make some engineers to take such critiques as a challenge
and look for on how to improve those mistakes. For example like customers
complained about the difficulty of opening the food packages or the low quality of the
food, which will turn on the switch for engineers to come out with creative ideas that
can retain the quality or to ease the opening of the package. As result, continuous

11. 9
improvement will happen to improve the product to satisfy customers and gain their
trust, which will secure their business. Many quality control or learn manufacturing
approaches can be taken to know the customers‟ requirements like survey or quality
function deployment (QFD).
5.8 Speak up and respect ideas
As engineers, we are trained to present or speak up of our ideas with other
engineers in order to know whether that our ideas right or wrong, or maybe can come
up with brilliant ideas by merging with other ideas. Thus might be able to solve some
problems with less stressful. Working as a team will also able to boost an engineer
career since, they might be able to learn new things from other engineers.
5.9 Motivation and appreciation
In order to meet the Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) plan, more motivational
talks are required to given to the full time employed engineers to make them
understand their duty as an engineer and their responsibility to society. By doing so, it
might be able to make them to take their profession seriously and realise the plan.
Moreover, companies and government are required to make all engineers to be
appreciated in order to boost their confident level and their career. For example like,
government introduce a special day for engineers, which is known as „Hari Teknikal
dan Kejuruteraan JKR Malaysia‟.

12. 10
5.10 Campaign
Based on the report from malaysiandigest.com, the number of Malaysian
students taking Science and Math in school is declining due to its complexity and
longer period to graduate compared to other field. Moreover, if the numbers continue
to drop, Malaysia may have to depend on technological expertise from imported
professionals in the near future, a phenomenon that is already happening in many
other fields that could potentially derail our progress to achieve our TN50. Hence,
government especially is required to make many engineering career campaign for
students or public to motivate them as well as to make public to accept engineering
more since this profession is crucial to achieve our TN50 plan.

13. 11
6.0 Preventive actions to avoid the problems hindering or to boost in future
In the future, food automation and manufacturing will replaces the traditional
manufacturing by the helps of robotics or the industry 4.0. With the help of
automation system, promising signs have been seen in the areas such as:
a. Quality Control
Overarching concern for both food producers and consumers. When
processing and packaging is automated, defects can be noticed and isolated more
easily.
b. Improved safety.
Automation and machine vision can work together to provide a more granular
view of every step in food processing. Supervisor can adapt more quickly to changes
in safety standards because a change in one process will not introduce unexpected
consequences in other areas.
Therefore, to address these challenges, food engineering in the future will
have to contribute to advancing the function of the processed food products, to
improving the sustainability of food manufacturing and distribution, and to the
spreading of food engineering knowledge, innovation, and best practice, especially to
the developing world
Food engineers should contribute to improving sustainability in several ways,
ranging from the basic concepts of mass and energy balances that include
environmental impact factors, to smarter process design that allows for the better
utilization of waste streams, energy recovery, and water recycling. This will be of
increasing important to increased production that needs to be achieved with limited
resources and environmental impact.

14. 12
Innovations in the food sector are central to health and wellbeing, both with
respect to prevention and treatment of many costly diseases (diabetes, obesity,
cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer‟s, cancer, etc.).
Food plays a critical role in the economic development and gender equality in
low to medium income countries. With a functioning agri -food sector people do not
need to merely live hand-to-mouth. It will free subsistence farmers thus enable
women and girls to do other tasks or be educated, generate jobs, tax income, and
personal income to buy other products and services once basic needs are met, i.e.,
once you are not worried about you kids going hungry you can do other productive
things.
Food production, preservation, processing and cooking (especially in
developing countries) is a large source (if not the majority) of environmental damage.
Examples include deforestation to make charcoal for house hold cooking needs,
unsustainable water use for growing and processing, packaging, food waste, pre-/post-
harvest, and in-store losses.
Humanity can still survive if there are not enough self-driving cars, mobile
phones apps or stain resistant nano-surfaces etc. to go around – but not if there is not
enough safe, healthy, available, and affordable foods for people on all parts of the
globe (Appert, 2006).

15. 13
7.0 References
Ahmed, elsadig musa. (1998). Productivity and Performance of Malaysian Food
Manufacturing Industry Elsadig Musa Ahmed, 25.
Ahmed, E. M. (2012). Malaysia‟s Food Manufacturing Industries Productivity
Determinants, 2012(July), 444–453.
Arhad, F. M., & Hameed, A. A. A. (2009). Global Food Prices Implications for Food
Security in Malaysia. Journal of the Consumer Research and Resource centre2.
Ayupp, K. (2013). Malaysian Food Processing Industry : Strategies for Growth, 4(16),
172–180.
Badawy, M. K. (1978). One more time: How to motivate your engineers. IEEE
Transactions on Engineering Management, EM-25(2), 37–42.
Kamaruddin, R. (2000). An ARDL Approach in Food and Beverages Industry Growth
Process in Malaysia, 2(3), 98–107
Mihindukulasuriya, S. D. F., & Lim, L. T. (2014). Nanotechnology development in
food packaging: A review. Trends in Food Science and Technology, 40(2), 149–
167.
Sharma, C., Dhiman, R., Rokana, N., & Panwar, H. (2017). Nanotechnology: An
untapped resource for food packaging. Frontiers in Microbiology.
Stadnicka, D., & Sakano, K. (2017). Employees motivation and openness for
continuous improvement: Comparative study in Polish and Japanese companies.
Management and Production Engineering Review, 8(3), 70–86.